here before.’
‘Ah. As you wish. Deep down, what does it matter? I know you, though. I have a very, very good memory. I remember everything!’
Brice didn’t insist. Blanche seemed so certain that it made him doubt, and he told himself that, after all, the diaphanous little face was not entirely foreign. In the half-light of the room, it appeared to give off a glow like a night-light, the sort you place by the bedside of children afraid of the dark. Was it the lack of a familiar presence, something he suffered from more each day, which suggested this comparison to him? At all events, despite the strangeness of the place and situation, the pale aura emanating from her calmed him. She spoke softly, nibbling away at the silence. It was like the echo of his own solitude.
‘When your foot recovers, the two of us will go for walks together.’
‘I’d love that; I adore little country byways.’
‘No. Along the main road. That’s where you find things.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Things. I’ll show you.’
She disappeared momentarily into a pool of shadow at the back of the room and emerged carrying a heavy box.
‘Look!’
With infinite care she took a pile of rubbish out of the box: assorted soft-drink cans, used tissues, cigarette packets, plastic bottles, tops, old rags, all squashed flat as if they’d been through a rolling mill.
‘Here, have a look at this. What would you say it was?’
To Brice it was a grey-brown piece of dried mud with a zigzag on the top.
‘It’s a rat! A rat! I’ve got a toad as well. And—’
‘That’s … astonishing. And you pick all this up from the edge of the main road?’
‘Every day. Ever since …’
A car had just drawn up in the courtyard. A door slammed. Blanche straightened up like a flick knife. Footsteps rang out on the staircase.
‘Blanche? Blanche, it’s me …’
A man of about seventy appeared, dressed in a khaki gamekeeper’s uniform, with an oval brass badge saying ‘La Loi’ on his chest. He was dark and gnarled as if carved from a vine stalk.
‘Oh, you’ve got company.’
‘Come in, Élie, come in.’
Brice stood up, holding out his hand. The man hesitated for a moment, giving Blanche a strange look, before offering five tuberlike fingers.
‘Brice Casadamont. I’ve just moved to Saint-Joseph, to the Loriol house.’
‘Ah, yes.’
He immediately noticed Brice’s swollen slippered foot.
‘You’re the one who fell at the waterfall?’
‘Yes, unfortunately.’
‘You shouldn’t go there at this time of year.’
‘I’ve learned my lesson. But it did allow me to make the acquaintance of Mademoiselle Blanche at the chemist’s.’
‘Right.’
This fortunate conjunction of events didn’t seem to thrill him overmuch since he immediately looked away to speak to Blanche. ‘I’ve brought the wood, three cubic metres. I’ll leave it in the courtyard and put it away tomorrow.’
‘Thank you, Élie. I was thinking of asking Monsieur to stay for dinner. Would you like to join us?’
‘No, Blanche, not this evening. I’ve still got things to do. I’ll put a basket of logs downstairs for you and cover the rest with a tarpaulin. It’s going to rain. Good evening.’
And he was gone, ignoring Brice’s hand. His steps could be heard dying away on the staircase, and then the door slammed. Blanche was holding her hands clasped in front of her chest and smiling.
‘Élie’s an old friend. A little brusque, but so devoted.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’
‘You’ll have dinner with me, won’t you?’
‘It’s just … I wouldn’t like to impose.’
‘Oh do, please. I’ll go and fetch the wood. We’ll get a good fire going and I’ll make the meal. Make yourself at home.’
‘I’ll help you.’
‘You mustn’t think of it with that foot. Sit down. You can light the fire.’
As he crumpled up some pages of a newspaper, he had time to read his horoscope, now three or four months out of date. ‘Work: be adaptable, take the initiative. Love life: be adaptable, cover your back. Health: good.’ Soon the fire was dancing merrily around the logs. The room looked like a fish tank in flames.
The packet soup was no more unpleasant than any other packet soup. As for the sardines in oil, worse had been known. The crackers were a bit soggy. Blanche kept up the conversation with the verbal incontinence of someone who hasn’t spoken to another human since the world ended. Brice learned that she was thirty-nine, and the sole heir of an illustrious blue-blooded family; that her father Louis had finished squandering a fortune already significantly reduced by his ancestors and at his death, ten years earlier, had left her nothing but a mountain of debt. In order to keep the house she had had to sell everything, which explained the monastic look of the place. The small allowance she received for the chronic depression she had suffered since her beloved father’s death enabled her to meet her modest needs.
‘Your turn now. Tell me about yourself.’
‘It’s very simple. My wife and I wanted to move out of the city. She’s a reporter; she travels a lot. In between trips she needs to rest. At the moment she’s on an assignment abroad.’
‘Ah. Abroad, that’s a long way …’
Blanche looked at him in silence for a moment, with the intense stare of an Easter Island statue.
‘You’re waiting for your wife then?’
‘Yes. I work as well, though. I’m a children’s book illustrator.’
Blanche was no longer listening. She seemed to be stirring up the fire of her dark gaze. Nine o’clock struck.
‘Nine o’clock! I’d better be going, I think. I’ve outstayed my welcome as it is.’
‘This morning on the radio, an explorer just back from the South Pole was saying that the coasts down there are so polluted by what’s thrown overboard from ships that birds build their nests from leftover bits of plastic, toothbrushes, combs, clothes pegs … That must be a sight worth seeing, don’t you think?’
‘Indeed. Well, thank you for the excellent dinner.’
‘What?’
‘Thank you for dinner.’
‘Oh yes. It’s raining. I’ll lend you a brolly.’
They parted on the doorstep.
‘Goodnight then, Blanche. It’ll be my turn to invite you next time.’
‘Yes. My father was an artist too, you know. He painted and wrote poems, really lovely ones. Goodbye.’
The sky was waterlogged, one immense pool.
Drifts of crumpled sketches were accumulating at Brice’s feet. With every drawing, Sabine grew more and more hideous, more and more like Mabel Hirsch. For almost three hours now he had been pointlessly using up paper. It was because of the envelopes with windows (bank, electricity, taxes …), piles of which were reaching dangerous levels on the kitchen table, that he had got out his pencils, brushes, paper and inks that morning. The bottle of